Financial Expert Witness Communication: A Practical Guide to Reporting and Testimony

Preface

THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN FOR practitioners having specialized expertise in, without limitation, accounting, auditing, economics, digital forensics, finance, financial forensics, taxation, and valuation, and who are planning on providing, or are currently providing, services in connection with formal litigation or alternative dispute resolution. For ease of reference, I refer to these professionals as financial experts, regardless of whether they serve as expert consultants or expert witnesses. The design of the book is to inform the financial expert about the many things that financial experts learn from the school of hard knocks. In other words, this book alerts the financial expert to the mistakes that I, and others I have observed, have made in the past and the resultant lessons learned. As such, this book is not fraught with technical seriousness and formalities. Instead, it is a book of anecdotal wisdom presented in a casual, accessible way.

The text has been organized into four parts. Part One is entitled “Dispute Resolution and the Financial Expert.” This part of the book provides an overview of U.S. civil litigation and explains how to get engaged, start work, and create value in litigation and alternative dispute resolution. Part Two, “Financial Expert Witness Rules, Case Precedent, and Ethics,” covers the federal rules regarding expert reporting and testimony. In addition, it sets out a number of cases potentially important to the financial expert witness and ...